A company has been fined a total of £133,000 after a worker was electrocuted. The prosecution followed a Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation into an accident where an employee of CFR Group PLC was electrocuted at the High Holborn site whilst wiring a water-unit as another employee in a power-switch room turned on the electricity. There were no systems for locking off the power, only tape, to indicate which circuit could be switched on or off. There was also an indication that the contractors on site were working excessive hours to get the job finished, which may have resulted in poor decision making.
The HSE investigation found that CFR Group should have carried out a risk assessment for the work as well as making sure adequate signs were used to indicate which power circuit could be turned on. Other circuits should also have been padlocked. In addition, better procedures were needed for a power lock-off and workers should not have worked longer than 48-hours per week within a specified period. The company pleaded guilty to breaching both the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Working Time Regulations SI 1998/1833.
The breach of the Working Time Regulations re-opened a debate we first brought to your attention back in the December 2006 Monthly Bulletin. Currently the provisions allow a worker to opt-out of the 48-hour week restriction by written agreement. However, the Government has come under increased pressure from Europe to end this right, which was prompted by a European Court of Justice ruling that working time for doctors, nurses and firefighters should include hours spent "on-call". This means as many as 23 EU countries could be in breach of the Working Time Directive 2003/88/EC.
